Terry Marotta:
Meeting the Day with Serenity & Great Aims

I could feel so good about myself if I didn't have this chorus of critics under my roof getting such a boot out of my every little error.

Return with me here to a time three Sundays back:

It is Easter morning and when the alarm goes off at 5:00 I think at once of Emerson's famous remark that the day is his who works in it with Serenity and Great Aims.

"That'll be me," I resolve.

Thus with Serenity do I empty the dishwasher and fold the laundry. With Great Aims do I begin preparing the brunch my husband and our grown kids will enjoy after we meet at church to catch the 9:00 o'clock service.

By 8:00 I have baked the ham and made a fresh vinaigrette; hand-sliced eight cucumbers and made a casserole, humming a little tune as I shredded the cheddar and drained off the pasta. I've even packed up portions of this feast for various family members to enjoy as lunches during the workweek.

Additionally I have warmed a quiche, made a strawberry compote and brewed a special latte, all for our 86-year-old uncle who has asked me to come for him early, so we can secure a pew in church far enough forward to smell those gorgeous lilies.

And in my mind anyway, all goes according to plan.

By 8:45 Uncle Ed and I have my car nosed right up against the church's big side door. Once inside, I have smiled the whole time--through the gladsome trumpets and handbells, the gravely joyous sermon, the wiggle of Time for the Young.

Even after I have dropped Uncle Ed for his nap I am still smiling broadly.

Still smilin' like a fool when I walk in my own back door, to find that the rest of my family has beaten me home and are laughing it up in the same kitchen in which, before they ascended into this early adulthood, I have fed them every day of their smarty-pants lives.

"Ha, ha check it out," one of them is saying. "I get over here this morning to drive to church with Dad and here he is washing the dishes WITH A SIX-INCH FLAME SHOOTING UP FROM ONE OF THE BURNERS BEHIND HIM! He hasn't even noticed!"

"Hey that was Mum's doing, not mine. "I wasn't cooking today," the man says, "but get this: I'm walking into church and I pass Mum's car and it's WIDE OPEN! She just left it like that with the whole back door just yawning open!"

"Hmmm" goes one of our kids, all fakely serious. "Maybe what you guys need is a helper monkey."

"What are helper monkeys?"

"Actual little monkeys that paraplegics can get. They have these little hands, so they can do all kinds of things."

"Like shut the car door," says one of the people I gave birth to, between swallows.

"Like turn off the gas," says another, still chewing.

"Like dial 911," says a third, as they laugh heartily and help themselves to seconds.

"Actually," adds one, "I think Mum already HAS a helper monkey, in Dad."

"Let's get him a little outfit," says another.

"I've been sayin' it for years: all I need is the cap," their dad then says, and brings the house down.

And how do I react to all this? I who began this day with such positive zest? Do I scowl darkly? Resort to sarcasm?

No ma'am, I just smile a secret smile. Then I picture that pretty Easter ham the way it looked when, hot and greasy, at 8 a.m. it leaped naked from its pan and shot across the kitchen floor.

Write Terry at PO Box 270, Winchester, Mass., 01890; or tmarotta@comcast.net.